


What the Doctor Needs

by BeaRyan



Series: Rare Pairs for Grey's Anatomy [1]
Category: Grey's Anatomy
Genre: Angst, Assumes facts not explicit in canon, Babysitting, F/M, Fluff, Pining, Smut, Vomit, drunk dialing your mom
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-24
Updated: 2016-02-24
Packaged: 2018-05-23 02:10:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,410
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6101305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BeaRyan/pseuds/BeaRyan
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Posted after 12 x 11, aka the one where Richard figured it out in the elevator.  This fic supposes a future where they've broken up but then angst and fluff happen.  Smut references but no actual smut.</p>
            </blockquote>





	What the Doctor Needs

"I need help." The words were hard to get out, but she had to say them. What the kids needed was more important than what she wanted. She'd give almost anything to avoid seeing DeLuca again, but for her nieces and nephew she'd bottle her feelings for an evening. 

"I'll be there in ten," he answered, and then the line went dead. 

Of course it did. He'd hung up, the jerk. The arrogant, self-important, cocky little bastard who'd had the unmitigated gall to dump her just because she didn't want it spread it all over the hospital that she was spreading it all over the hospital with an intern. She could kill him. If she was less professional she'd really hurt him and keep him out of surgery, but as it was she'd settle for wishing him dead and letting Zola vomit on him for an evening. 

He was good with the kids. Claimed he liked them. Claimed he liked kids in general. 

He'd even claimed in quite the sad little show that he had to let her go so he could go find someone who did want to have kids with him. Stupid, immature little boy. She wanted kids, just not with an intern. AN INTERN! He wasn't father material. He worked a hundred hours a week and had never published. He was nice, but...

Sexy, but...

Gentle when she wanted him that way and rough when she didn't.

He took directions well. He took control well, too. 

The sound of Zola vomiting brought her roughly back to reality. Right. Take care of the kids until Meredith got home. It wasn't that big a challenge. She'd fed them and put them to bed before, and she was a doctor. Angry little tummies were a professional hazard. A hazard fit for an intern, and so she'd called one. 

"It's OK, baby," she cooed while Zola fought tears, Bailey snuck the volume up another notch on the TV and Ellis log rolled across the floor to do battle with the leg of the coffee table. "Andrew will be here soon."

Zola perked up a little at that. She and Bailey had watched a lot of soccer with Andrew while Meredith was in the hospital. He had looked good with a kid on either side of him, and, even though she suspected that the bit of Italian Bailey had picked up during their TV time wasn't anything she'd want him repeating in English, both kids had seemed to flourish in the light of his steady, mellow energy. He'd been an anchor in the storm while she felt like she'd spent all her time bailing. 

While Meredith was in the hospital he'd spent most of his time off at the house and they'd collapsed in bed together more than once, sexless and exhausted, after a full day of surgery and an evening of macaroni and cheese duty. Sometimes they'd have a glass of wine and pretend they were going to watch a movie on TV. She'd spent more time making out on the couch in the last few months than in all her teen years combined. He was a good kisser. 

And an intern. A debt saddled, barely employed, probably doesn't know the difference between angioplasty and cardiomyoplasty, baby-faced, child of a doctor. He wasn't a keeper at this point in his life, and by the time he was all her eggs would have turned to dust. 

"Hey." 

She jumped at his voice, at the sudden intrusion into her thoughts, knocking into Zola as she did and nearly sending the bowl of sick tumbling to the ground. 

"So you just let yourself in?" she snapped. 

"Ellis and Bailey should be asleep by now. I didn't want to ring the bell and wake them." 

"Well, we're all awake, the house reeks, Zola needs another bath - "

"I'm on it," he said and with that he was gone, straight past her to the TV, flipping it off and holding his arms open to Bailey who ran into them. Ellis he scooped off the floor, and with a few muttered words to Bailey, telling him what a big boy he was and how much Andrew needed his help, the three of them were off and up the stairs. Just before he was out of sight Andrew called back to Zola, encouraging her to help Maggie get her cleaned up and promising he would be in to check on her even if she was asleep by the time he was done with the younger kids. 

Maggie felt Zola relax against her as Andrew spoke and not for the first time wondered how Andrew's calm sincerity worked on the kids in exactly the way her firmly directed energy didn't. They were great for her when they were doing art projects or having a dance party, but Andrew trumped her every time when it came to the little things that pushed them through the paces of their day. 

Doctors Pierce and DeLuca made a good team, but outside the hospital she wasn't sure who was captain. She was always the captain. That's how she'd been raised. To be in charge. To lead. To be better than anyone else and to make them all chase her and try to keep up. 

He hadn't chased her, but then she hadn't given him a finish line he could ever hope to cross. 

It only took half an hour to get Zola cleaned up and asleep, the medicine finally taking effect doing what no number of stories and cuddles ever could, and she leaned against the wall outside Zola's room and tried to form a plan for getting Andrew back out of the house. Thanks were in order. He'd come over during a few of his precious hours outside the hospital and done what she couldn't have asked him to do as his boss. He was here because... She couldn't let her mind go down that path, the one that crisscrossed a dozen roads not taken. She bit her lip and ordered the tears to retreat. She controlled her feelings every day at the hospital. She could make it through the 15 minutes it would take to get her ex out the door. 

The carpet muffled her steps as she descended from the kids' bedrooms in the attic to the adult bedrooms on the second floor, and she paused again and took a few more breaths with her hand resting on the rail to brace herself for the final descent to the first floor. She could tell him goodbye again. This exit didn't have to sting like the last time they'd parted. They were already over. Tonight was just... visiting the body in the morgue. She was a doctor. Bodies didn't bother her. 

A slam and a muttered curse caught her attention and she headed to her bedroom to investigate the noise. Best case scenario: Alex was trying to rob her. 

"Do I still have clean scrubs here?" Andrew demanded. The wet splotch across his pants and the bottom edge of his scrub top told the tale of Ellis' diaper failure. 

This was her fault, and the tornado of words kicked in before Maggie could stop it. "Oh, I'm so sorry. I don't know when I last changed her. I was trying to get them all fed and I forgot that what goes in has to come out! And it kept coming out of Zola - I hate vomit - and Bailey called me into the bathroom to help him wipe and I guess I forgot about Ellis. How could I forget about Ellis?"

Andrew let slide one of those half laugh, half sighs that she'd come to recognize. He used to just let her roll, trained to stand back and let his attending have her say, but after a few months together he'd stopped hiding that he found Hurricane Maggie adorable. "Clothes, Maggie. Do I still have clothes here? I thought I'd left a set of scrubs, and they aren't your size so they should still be here unless you took them back to the hospital. I found the pants - washed, thanks - in the drawer but I can't find the shirt." 

"Go take a shower. I'll bring it to you."

She waited until she heard the door to the bathroom close before she started rummaging through her sheets for the shirt. She knew where it was, wrinkled and unwashed and still smelling just a little bit like him. Every night she curled into the scent of soap, the fake forest scent of his deodorant, and of course the particular smell of him. It was trite to call it musky and she chastised herself for thinking it even as she buried her face in the wrinkled ball of cotton and inhaled. Why was this so hard? He wasn't an option. He was an intern. It would be dating down. She'd been raised better than that. She was a role model of a woman and she needed a man who was her equal. Girls like Zola needed women like her to look up to. "You can't be what you can't see" and all that. Why couldn't Zola look up to someone else and just let her be happy?

The voice came from the door, soft and sad, as beaten sounding as she felt. "Maggie?"

Shirtless and still damp with his scrub pants hanging low on his hips and his hair still a mess, Andrew leaned against the door frame, neither in nor out of the room.

She threw the shirt at him, watching as the crumpled ball expanded and dropped to the floor between them. "Why couldn't you be fifteen years older and black?" 

"I am who I've always been."

"No you're not!" she yelled back. "You were just some guy to screw, a way to blow off steam. This wasn't supposed to be a relationship. It can't be. My parents didn't raise me to be this person." 

"Your dad likes me. He said he was sorry to hear we broke up. Seemed sincere." 

"Not Richard. My family! My family wouldn't accept us together." 

"Do you mean the sister whose kids' I just put to bed or the sister who told me I should give you some time to get your head out of your ass?"

"Stop," she ordered. "You don't know what it's like. I have to be twice as good to get half as much respect."

"What the hell does that have to do with anything? Yes, some patients are idiots. They don't take their meds, they wait to late to come in, and they pick their doctor based on how he looks."

"The whole world is that way, and the only way to change it is to be the change. Zola needs to see a successful black woman with a successful black man."

"I don't have an answer for this after school special bullshit. Zola's mom is white. Her aunt, the guy who might as well be her grandfather, and her brother's namesake are black. The kid has role models. Don't pretend that you're doing this for her."

He yanked the wrinkled shirt over his head and she ached to see it go. She'd thought they were over before but now she wouldn't even have his stupid, smelly shirt. 

He continued, "If you grow up before I find someone else, call me. Otherwise, don't. I like the kids, but you've made it clear they aren't going to be my nieces and nephew and I don't want to confuse them." 

"You don't know what it's like." 

"I know what you've told me it's not going to be. That's all I need to know. In five years I'll be a surgeon, hopefully with a wife and a kid. That's not what you want - "

She interrupted, "That IS what I want -" 

"Not with me."

"Yes, with you." She stopped fighting the tears. There was no point in hiding them. He knew she was a mess, had known it for a while and loved her anyway. "I just can't - " 

"Call your mom," he said, "because everyone else thinks this is stupid." 

The flash of cold shame and horror ran through her. "Who thinks I'm stupid?" 

"Webber for one. He said if you're lucky enough to find one person who catches your mind, body and soul then you hold on and never let go. Shepherd told me to give you time to get your head out of your ass. Karev agreed with her but thinks you won't back down. Grey just shrugged and asked me to give you another roll so you'd chill out. Hunt agrees with you though. He said if we can't agree on what we want out of life to get the hell out as soon as possible because it only gets harder."

Her lip trembled. "They're talking about me at the hospital? About the fact that I slept with an intern?"

"Your friends know because you told them and they think you're choosing to be unhappy. No one but you cares that I'm an intern."

"My parents won't like you." 

"Well my mom doesn't like you either. I told her I'm a grown man and I make my own decisions." 

Maggie felt herself stiffen and tried not to blame Andrew for how others felt. "She doesn't like that I'm black," she said. 

"She doesn't like that you're not Catholic." 

"What?" It had occurred to her that his family might not like her, that he was being naive when he insisted the world was fine with them together. The particular reason, though, was a shock. 

"My mother is worried about her grandchildren's immortal souls. She doesn't like it when I date heathens."

"Heathens? Heathens?!? That's not even the technically correct term for a non-Catholic. She'd be OK with you dating a Muslim woman if her only concern was that the person didn't belong to a widely practiced religion. And besides medicine is my religion and I practice it with a level of skill and devotion most priests wish they could achieve."

"Goodnight, Maggie." 

She followed him down the stairs, her words still flying out at gale speeds. "Parents love me. I'm very lovable. I'm successful and respectful. I'm a good friend, a good helper, a good sister. Your mom would be thrilled to have me as the mother of her grandchildren. I'm going to be a great mom. I'm going to get gold in the mothering Olympics, and in the events where I'm not so strong, you're great. We're champions, and our kids will be loved and happy and supported no matter what religion or lack of religion we practice. And besides who even cares about religion anymore? I mean I could see if you were really into it like Kepner it could be a problem, but it seems like it's just one small piece of who you are - "

He cut her off mid-sentence with a kiss, the kind that curled her toes and lit up her nerve endings, and her body pulled towards his like a magnet, her soft curves bending into the hard planes of his body. 

He pulled away from her slowly and his hands on her hips kept her from pressing forward and following him as he stepped back. "You aren't even listening to yourself, and I'm leaving now. If the pattern holds you're going to want to talk to me in about three hours. Talk to your mom first. It's later in Hawaii so you won't even be waking her up." 

"Andrew..." She didn't know what her next words were and his name hung between them as both a question and a plea. 

"As of right now, we aren't together. If you're willing to take a shot at a public, long term relationship then we can give it another try. I love you, Maggie, and I either want to tell the world or get over it. Pick one."

The door closed softly behind him and she let the choices swirl around her until it felt like she would drown. Wine. She needed wine if she was seriously going to try to think about this again. 

Three glasses later she was lying on the couch trying to remember why they hadn't just gone public with their relationship when Andrew had first told her how unhappy he was with the secrecy. Everyone but her parents already knew, and those who knew all thought she should be with Andrew. Even Alex said he was "the least stupid intern I've seen in the last five years." He was going to be a good surgeon one day, but, more important than that, he was a good man now. He knew who she was, all her crazy, her need to be independent and her desire to be held, and he loved her anyway. 

When her parents had told her about the man she should find they'd never mentioned diapers and macaroni. They hadn't talked about her weaknesses and how he'd have to work around them. Patience and determination would have to be among her husband's traits, but they'd never been specifically mentioned. Andrew made her feel appreciated not for her accomplishments but just for who she was. 

She hit speed dial seven on her phone, waited for the hello and then launched her words into the void before her mother could start talking about soaps and weather again. 

"He's not who you told me to look for, Mom, but he's what I need and he makes me happy and I hope you'll give him a chance or at least try to be happy for me even if he's not who you expected."

Maggie counted the beats of her heart in the silence and wondered if her pulse was racing or if her mother really did have to think this long for a response. Probably both. Her voice was full of the level-headed calm Maggie had counted on her whole life. This was the voice that had talked her down when she gotten a B and lost her first patient. "Plans change, baby, and that's OK. I did what I thought other people expected of me for decades and I'm still just as divorced at 60 as I would have been if I'd gotten divorced at 40. Go ahead and be happy now. Don't put it off until some magical later when everything is perfect. You don't know how much later you have." 

"He's younger and white," Maggie said. She needed to get that out there, to let her mother know exactly how far off the path her parents had set her on she'd strayed. 

"Does he surf? I love to go down to the beach and watch the boys surf."

In all the times she'd imagined this conversation with her mother it had never gone this way. "It's Seattle, Mom, not Hawaii. And he's not just a pretty face. He's a doctor." 

"Well, we already have a pretty doctor in the family, but I guess we could stand another one if he makes you happy." 

"In the family?"

"You wouldn't bother to announce him like this if he was just a fling. I'm ready for grandchildren and you're more than grown. Get on with your life, girl." 

Her phone chirped with the notice of an incoming message and she glanced down while her mother started talking about the cleansing properties of volcanic ash. 

The message read, "Your three hours are almost up. Going to sleep soon." 

She wrote back, "Just finishing telling my mom about us. Come over." 

She'd barely pressed send when she heard the knock at the door and she ran to answer it, knowing him as well as he knew her but still pleased that he'd bothered to be close when her contemplation time ended. She threw open the door and grinned, the phone still pressed to her ear, and said, "Mom, I have to go, but can you send more of the coconut oil soap?" It was more lubricant than soap, letting skin slide over skin in long, smooth strokes, and the bathroom had been dangerous after they'd used an entire bar for a single shower.

He wrapped his arms around her, drawing her in as she said her goodbyes to her mother, and whispered in her ear, "You know what I like." 

"I know what you need." 

"I need you," he said.

"I need you, too. And everyone knows it. Even me."

**Author's Note:**

> You've seen the post on Tumblr about how authors live for comments? That.


End file.
